It's hard to believe we are discussing the last of the 8 Developing Writers workshops. Tawna raises important "hurdles" about technology in ABLE, namely equipment (hardware and software), time, and levels of student knowledge. Have any of you found, as Tawna did, that many students have never used email? The Southwest Resource center recently did a survey of technology use in our classrooms - it will be interesting to review the results and try to determine what can be done (from state level on down) to address the gaps.

Integrating technology in the classroom can be a challenge. I know preparing our students for writing in the 21st century is important but the barriers can slow the progress of the integration. Time, money, and equipment present hurdles that have to be overcome. As teachers we will need to think outside the box and create writing lessons that will improve the academic realm of writing as well as learning technology. The computer presents the most obvious choice for lessons. I developed a lesson that looked at email etiquette and then had students respond to a teacher generated office memo email. Students had to access the email account, read the memo, and then reply to the memo using the etiquette rules we had discussed. For many, this was a first experience using email.

I liked the lesson and thought it was very worthwhile. The students were engaged in learning at each step. Nevertheless, I did discover that the lesson took much longer than I had anticipated and I will need to remember that as I begin to intertwine technology and writing in the class time that has been set up for writing instruction. Just another examination of the saying ? so much to do ?.so little time?.?

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